Tears in the Symphony

I feel like a terrible thespian
or maybe a great comedian
playing a retarded character,
like Freddy Benson.

Other-days
I feel like that guy who shot himself
during The Watchmen, like an octopus
in a tank of lobsters. Your lips when

kissed that afternoon, silky, salty and
cold, parted like a cut jellyfish on
an overcast shoreline. Poverty, chastity
obedience, enclosure. I had a dream.

Watching a nun fall off a bicycle on the
banks of the Seine … but it’s like watching
a .gif and after my laughter subsides
I find myself fascinated with the
paralinguistics of the way her ankles bend
as she hits the stair-rail. It’s like Springsteen’s
Dancer in The Dark, you know, up against
yourself, tongue kissing your
shadow with reckless abandon.

Brentley Frazer is a widely published Australian poet. His poems and other writings have been published in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, U.K, U.S.A, India, Japan and Slovenia. He is currently (2015) in the final stages of a PhD (poetry/experimental literature/creative nonfiction) at Griffith University supervised by the poet Anthony Lawrence and the writer Nigel Krauth. Visit www.brentley.com for more poems and other literary experiments.